Abstract

Response Elaboration Training (RET; Kearns, 1985, 1986) is a content-driven treatment for individuals with aphasia. Several studies by Kearns and colleagues indicate RET’s unique “loose training” paradigm increases the amount of verbal information produced by individuals with non-fluent Broca’s aphasia in response to picture stimuli (Gaddie, Kearns, & Yedor, 1991; Kearns, 1985, 1986; Kearns & Scher, 1989; Kearns & Yedor, 1991; Nessler, 2009), and that in some cases, RET effects generalize to other speaking partners, stimuli, and settings (Bennett, Wambaugh, & Nesslar, 2005; Gaddie et al., 1991; Kearns & Yedor, 1991). In most RET research, training effects are quantified by having the participant describe the same pictures used in RET. This provision of pictorial support limits conclusions that can be drawn about the effectiveness of RET and its generalizability. The present study examined the effectiveness and generalizability of RET on speaking performance of individuals with non-fluent Broca’s aphasia with a sentence production task (SPT) that did not provide picture support.